SURVIVING AND THRIVING THE WORK CHRISTMAS PARTY

BY: Megane Herrick

HOT HITS AND CELEB BITS! Gary Campion

It’s the season to be jolly fa la la and all that jazz! We’ve made it to the end of the year and my column is still going so I must be doing something right! Let’s get stuck in.

My top 5 hits on repeat

What I am listening to!

Cian Ducrot - Victory - this guy / this song is something else! Deep, hard-hitting, honest lyrics and a chorus that I can see an arena full of fans singing back to him.

Baby Queen - We Can Be Anythingripping up the pop starlet rule book and picking up where Lily Allen left off, Baby Queen is on the rise.

#Heartbreaker

CarPark- Suburbs of Hell - Girl Rock Trio proving they’re ready for bigger venues than their first gig in a Belfast mates garage, being championed by BBC Radio1.

Holly HumberstonePaint My Room Black - Proving she deserved her BRIT Rising Star award with the title track to her highly anticipated debut album.

New Album releases I’ve previewed to get excited about!!!

Rebecca Ferguson - Heaven Part ll - 5th Dec

You will have already read my feature interview with the lady herself earlier in this issue, but I have to say this album is one that has me more personally and professionally excited than I have been in a while having met and worked with the lady herself in various capacities in Ireland.

A 10-track follow-up to her double platinum Heaven album released 12 years to the day of this part II release, which I think is poetic in itself. Working with some of the original writers from the first instalment with a few new contributors added the songs are a reflection of the past 7 years for Rebecca. Exploring love, family, joy, liberation and her journey to happiness, this album is full of lessons learned from the peace that came after she found her voice speaking up, overcoming obstacles and empowering women in creative industries.

Rebecca kindly gave me a VIP listen to the full album, she has grown and developed as an artist and the album is just perfection for her dare I say it… come back. Personally, stand-out tracks for me are:

“Diggin for Gold” - perfection for radio airplay and live performance.

“I Have a Dream” with its positive messages of encouragement, I can hear Rebeccas performing this with a full choir in my head.

“Found my Voice” where Rebecca really shows what she can vocally do paired with superb backing vocalists and a

Griff - Vertigo - a song that Taylor Swift promoted on Instagram saying she “loved” it….well that’s good enough for me….go give it a listen!

Baby Queen - Quarter Life Crisis - 10th Nov

The wait is over for her devoted kingdom as Baby Queen (aka Bella Latham) announced the details of her eagerly awaited debut album ‘Quarter Life Crisis.’ Featuring 12 tracks, including previously released singles ‘Dream Girl’ and ‘We Can Be Anything’ and the new lead single ‘All The Things,’ which is one of six songs she has contributed to the soundtrack of the 2nd series of the global smash Netflix show Heartstopper.

Blending pop hook tendencies with hard-edged aggression, the album’s first single “Dream Girl” is the perfect, compromise-free meeting of these two sides of herself. An achingly honest song, it chronicles a kind of unrequited love she felt for a woman who was in a relationship with a man.

When chatting with Baby Queen about the album she told me, “This album tells the story of my journey through my early 20s - leaving my childhood and my adolescence behind but never really losing my childlike wonder and never quite growing up. The songs are all facets of what early adulthood has been like for me while discovering new parts of myself, my sexuality, my past and my place in this world. It has been lonely, chaotic, beautiful, devastating and inspiring and I think these songs reflect that, creating a space in which innocence and experience can live side by side as two conflicting entities.” Her sound, lyrics and not giving a fuck attitude remind me of Lily Allen but rather than mimicking her she is picking up where Lily left off and making it her own, with already 1.1 million listeners on Spotify she is doing something right, bring on the 10th Nov is all I can say!

My Top 5 Rediscovered Tunes - The Freshers Version

My Top 5 Rediscovered Tunes - The Festive Version!

With Halloween over the festive season is fast approaching, so I figured I would bring samples of the best modern-day diva crimbo tracks!

Meghan Trainor - I’ll Be Home - A beautiful ballad-style tune, making promises that she will hopefully get to keep. It’s a wee tune that you will hum along to.

Kelly Clarkson - Underneath The Tree - power vocal check, Christmas trees check, and honkey tonk piano…..a classic for many years to come!

Vinyl of the Moment - The way all the greats should be played!

Tina Turner - Queen of Rock N Roll - Contains her 55 singles from 1975 to 2020 in chronological order and I got a copy before its official release, thank you old PR friends! It is the first project to be released since her death in May this year and like a true Queen, she is still rocking n rolling for us from beyond the grave!

The Corrs - Best of the Corrs - covering the incredible Corrs first 3 hugely successful studio albums. Made available on vinyl for the first time on gold discs it includes 3 new tracks recorded in tribute to Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie, Little Lies, Everywhere and Songbird. it sounds great and matches my living room decor.

I hope you all have enjoyed my recommendations, reviews and bits of gossip over the past year. All that is left for me to say is that I wish all our readers a fun and safe Christmas period, drink, eat and be merry.

Happy Listening, Gary x

Leona Lewis - One More Sleep - Fast becoming the UK’s answer to the queen of Christmas with her annual Christmas tour Leona counts down the run-up to the big day.

Mariah Carey ft Ariana Grande & Jennifer Hudson - Oh Santa - the undisputed queen of Christmas with 2 featured fellow powerhouse vocalists, jiggling bells and a catchy couldn’ttune…..you hate this one if you tried!

Little Mix - One I’ve Been Missing - This one didn’t chart so well for the girls but I adore them so……. fight me if you disagree with them being on my list!